Searching for Strawberries
by Weezila
Summary: A chance meeting and a rather irrelevant side story as to how Sam and Dean met Nico di Angelo on the worst night of his life, and the ensuing headaches.
1. Hello

**Oh God. OhGodOhGodOhGod. **

**Oh, Hello internet.**

**Ok, so this is my first cross-over fic, and I had previously thought all crossover fics were ridiculous and pointless and weird and…**

**And now I'm writing one. **

**Yes, God (or gods, no judging), strike me down, I'm a hypocrite. **

**I was reading this fanfic by Asilda (best. story. EVER.) about a crossover from Percy Jackson and the Olympians and The Kane chronicles (that I have never read, but have to now, thanks to that fic) about how Nico became Anubis's host and there was this battle and a stone heart and Percy in his epicness, and, and, and…**

**And it was awesome. **

**And then Asilda wrote this other cross over with Percy Jackson and some other series I've never read (less inclined to read that one, but it was so well done that I didn't really have to anyway) and it really inspired me. Only problem was, it inspired me to write a crossover, and now I'm officially a hypocrite. **

**Yes, you may throw stones at me, I deserve it. **

**Any-hoo, this writer, Asilda, is officially my favorite person/writer (ok, tied with CP Coulter who is equally god-like in my eyes) because they obviously love Nico di Angelo as much as I do, and writes these wonderfully awesome stories that are fabulous on their own right, despite the fact a lot of them center around my fav character (three guesses who). **

**Credit for the plot of the story goes to Asilda, but they only posted one chapter of this then either gave up on it or is taking a freakin' LONG time to update, and it's killing me. Therefore, I write my own version so I don't die of suspense. **

**Oh, and not to mention I have never once read a Supernatural fic much less WRITE ONE myself, so, throw stones for being a hypocrite, not for my suck-y portrayal of Supernatural characters…**

**Wow, long A/N. **

**Enjoy!**

"Damn it! Stupid, bloody, god forsaken-!"

"Dean, shut up." Sam hissed, as his brother started cursing under his breath at the tree root that had tripped him.

"You shut up! Why the hell are we out here in the middle of who-gives-a-crap?"

Sam didn't respond, leaving his brother cursing on the ground as he moved onward, making their way through the forest. Dean knew very well that taxis and cars were bring thrown off the road near the local strawberry farm in this country side outside of New York city, and they'd come to investigate. No one had ever actually seen the strawberry farm, which miraculously was still selling its goods to local restaurants even now, in the middle of winter.

Stranger still, in Sam's research, the farm was called the Delphi Strawberry Service and he was almost certain the name Delphi was associated with a type of spirit that lead it's host to start spouting out prophecies. It was old stuff, way back to Ancient Greece even, right up there with the legends of Hercules and the Greek Gods, which made the Winchester brother a tad nervous, but he doubted it was anything major.

I mean, seriously, they might just even find out the _real_ reason people used to believe in the Greek Gods—the Olympians or whatever. It was probably just a bunch of demons that possessed normal people and pretended to be gods, and the uneducated people of way back when had bowed down and built statues in their honor. Something practically like that, not real gods.

If anything, Castiel had proved to them with his irrational faith in _the _God (though, he was an angel of the lord, so they didn't exactly hold it against him)that the workings of _one_ god—if he existed, and _only_ if, something they still hadn't proven—and Lucifer and all the angels/demons crawling around accounted for 99% of all the shit that ever happened and people claim to be something stupid like aliens or sasquatch. The gods of old being one of them.

The longer he trudged through these woods— Dean still cursing behind him about being out in the middle of the night in winter sniffing around the woods around the Delphi Strawberry Farm (WHICH, they might point out, they still couldn't find for some unknown reason)— his mind filling up with the images of the Ancient Greek culture from his research, the more he started to think it was just demons mucking about in the days of early civilization. He preoccupied himself trying to figure out how a demon would get itself classified as the Goddess of Love, when something hit him in the back of the head—_hard. _

Dean hit the dirt beside him, and he knew whatever hit him got his brother too.

His instincts took over and he was on his feet with a lurch forward, his shotgun full of rock salt whipping around, the safely clicking off simultaneously, and he aimed it defensively behind him.

He'd expected a ghost, bloody and gaunt running at him; a zombie, decaying and falling apart limping towards him; a vampire, baring its teeth and pouncing; perhaps even an angel smirking at him with the _you-cannot-comprehend-how-stupid-and-pathetic-you-pawns-are-right-now _ smile that he hated so much, or even a demon with solid black eyes with their _I'm-gonna-own-you-right-now_ sadistic, wild looks, but it wasn't any of that.

He did NOT expect a little boy with wide, teary eyes staring rather deadened at them.

"What the hell?!" Dean gasped, glancing at Sam as if to confirm he was seeing the same thing. Sam lowered his gun by an inch, but kept his guard up. A lot of monsters could take the form of children, he couldn't just _fall for it_, that was a rookie mistake.

"Just shoot me already…" The boy murmured, tears slipping from his eyes as the brothers just stared at him. "I hit you with rocks, why didn't you…?" His bottom lip jut out and trembled, his eyes begging Sam to pull the trigger.

He dropped the gun on the ground immediately.

"Wha- Sammy! Pick the gun up!" Dean snapped, pointed his own gun at the boy a bit more fiercely as if to reaffirm that the kid still had a gun on him even though one brother had given up.

"No, Dean, he's not a monster."Sam snapped back, grabbing the barrel of his brother's gun and forcing it to point it at the ground.

Dean looked startled and glared at Sam. "What are you doing?! Keep your guard up you idiot! This is no time for being a pussy and getting soft the minute some monster takes the shape of a little-!"

"Woah, woah, where are you going?!" Sam ditched his brother and leapt towards the boy who had started to walk away into the forest. He grabbed his small shoulder to turn him around, but the boy reacted violently, wrenching away and skittering back a few steps.

"Get off me!' He cried, tears welling up in his eyes again. "Just leave me alone!"

"Sammy, get back! He's not-"

"He's human, Dean!" Sam exploded, not quite knowing how he knew, but he knew. "He's human, and like, _eight_ or something, and he just asked us to kill him! You're just gonna let him walk away into the forest with no coat or anything in the middle of winter?!"

The boy tried to turn and get away again, but Sam grabbed his shoulder.

"STIO ZIATTO! COMPAREDI IDOITED NIE DI CEVISIO DINE MIACTIS!" The boy screamed at the top of his lungs in what sounded like Italian, fighting violently to get away, but even though he was ten times stronger than Sam had judged him to be, he was still a little boy and Sam was still a man, and restrained him easily. Tears were falling fast now, and he gave a final sob before collapsing down into the snow.

Dean watched this with some sort of shock/horrified/uncomfortable/awkward expression, obviously worried about the kid, but utterly out of his element on what to do. If anything though, he now knew the kid was definitely human.

"Come on, kid, calm down, we're not gonna hurt you, uh…" Dean said gruffly, shifting uncomfortably.

"What's your name?" Sam asked gently, still holding the kid's shoulders as he sobbed into the snow, utterly defeated, heart-wrenching sobs.

"N-Nico di Angelo." He muttered between cries and fell silent.

"Any reason you're wandering around in the middle of nowhere, at night, in December?" Dean said, not exactly nicely, and Sam shot him a _could-you-be-any-more-of-a-callous-jerk-right-now? _look.

"She's dead…" He sobbed, and the brothers exchanged suddenly worried looks.

"Who? Your mom?" Sam asked gently getting uncomfortable now too. If this kid's mom had died under supernatural circumstances, she might still be around, and if they have to exercise her… well, he didn't like the idea of this kid being around.

"N-no. B-Bianca, my s-s-sister…" He choked out. "H-he promised he'd keep her safe!" He spat out that last part angrily, obviously blaming this "him" for her death.

"Do you have any family nearby? Maybe an aunt, or grandparent—"

"They're dead." The boy said, suddenly coldly. He stopped shaking and wrenched his shoulders away from Sam again, but didn't move to get up from where he was kneeling on the ground in the snow.

_Great, an orphan. Social services or leave him to the streets? THOSE are some options right there… this just got a lot more complicated._

"How old was your sister?" He tried to get the boy to open up some more, but he just kept, well, _glaring_ at the ground, his tears and sadness forgotten. Sam noticed he looked distinctly Italian—which would explain the earlier outburst—but he was so pale, or maybe it was the moonlight, but he was like a ghost. And Sam had seen plenty of ghosts and corpses to know how pale they could get, this boy—Nico—was possibly paler than even them. It didn't seem to be anything out of the ordinary for him though, not because of the cold or the tears, maybe he was just that freakishly pale.

Nico frowned. "Thirteen, I think." He frowned deeper, as if he had a headache.

"You think?" Dean said incredulously, and Sam shot him another warning look. The older brother wisely shut up (for once) knowing he was out of his league with kids.

"I… I've no memories from beyond a few weeks ago." He murmured under his breath. "I… I don't… I was in a hotel, but Bianca, but…" He shook his head, his eyes snapping up and focusing on the brothers, as if for the first time. "Who are you?" He demanded, and it was full of authority and eight-year old should not have.

"Woah, take it easy!" Sam raised his hands at the boy's accusatory glare. "I'm Sam, that's Dean, and we're brothers. We were just sniffing around here because we heard some strange things going on."

"Strange…" He seemed confused, his impossibly dark eyes flitting between brothers distrustfully.

Sam was banking heavily on the fact the kid was too young to understand it, so he told him the half truth. "We heard a lot of taxis get thrown off the road nearby, sometimes they're trashed and not by hitting a tree. Plus, there's this company called the Delphi Strawberry Service, that no one's heard of when we talk to them, and…" He trailed off, suddenly seeing the flash of recognition in Nico's eyes.

"You know it?" Dean leaned forward, seeing it too.

"I, uh… no." The boy pursed his lips tightly, giving the brothers wide, too-innocent eyes.

Sam and Dean exchanged a loaded look.

0000000000000

"Hungry, aren't you?" Dean commented, as Nico finished off and entire burger, two plates of fries, four sodas, and a milk shake in the diner they'd dragged him to. As usual, Nico didn't respond in any way.

"Come on kid!" Dean nearly shouted in exasperation. "We _know_ you know something! Spill!"

"You can trust us," Sam reassured the boy, who simply leaned back into the plastic cushion of the booth and looked blankly at the tile floor, avoiding their eyes. "Did you see something that scared you? Something about the company that wasn't right? Like a man with black eyes or someone acting strange?"

Nico lifted his eyes and cocked his head in confusion at Sam.

"Is it even a company at all, or is it a front?" Dean threw out there, and Nico's eyes flashed to him for a second, wide with fear, before glaring at the floor again. "That's it, isn't it!?" Dean sat up, excited. "It's a front! Now all we have to do is find a way in, maybe pose as one of their truck delivery guys on the next export trip-"

Nico was staring at him again as if he was crazy. "Why do you want in there?" He asked quietly, and Dean came up short.

"Something bad's happening in there, we want to stop it." Sam told him gently, but was surprised when the boy was already shaking his head.

"You can't stop it. It's not bad for everyone, just for me…" He sighed sadly, glaring out the window. "Everyone else loves it there. They call it home. But they think I'm a freak… even Bianca didn't stay with me…" He looked on the verge of tears again, and Sam tried to lean over to put a hand on his shoulder, but the kid just glared daggers at him, resulting in the older man instantly leaning away. Something about his glare was unnerving.

"You ran away from there?" Dean confirmed, and Nico shot him a glare as well. Sam would have commented at his older brother's scared-y cat behavior as he jumped and also leaned away, if he hadn't just done the same thing three seconds earlier.

The boy hesitated, measuring up the brothers with eyes that looked old and weathered in the delicate young face, with a surprising amount of intelligence behind them that normal children shouldn't have.

"It's a sanctuary." He finally said. "A safe place for… for people like me." He said the last part like he didn't believe it one bit. "You won't be able to even find it, mortals can't. You can look forever, and you won't ever get close. Stop looking, there's nothing bad going on, and even if there were, you are the last people on earth who could stop it." That was the most they'd heard him talk, and what he said went against everything they stood for.

"Sorry kid, we're not going to give up cuz some random eight year old told us we've nothing to worry about. We've got a job to do, and we do it despite several warnings a day to butt out, so, no, we'll be looking into this." Dean told the kid, shifting as Nico stared at him again, like he was looking right through him, yet seeing more than anyone else ever could.

"Whatever." The kid looked away, glaring at the floor again, effectively ending that conversation.

Sam gave Dean a look that said, _now what?_

"Uh… give him some cash and stick him in a hotel room 'till this job's over?" Dean suggested unhelpfully, whispering so Nico wouldn't be able to hear them.

"That is the worse idea I've ever heard." Sam dead-panned back, just as quiet.

"Hey! I'm not good with kids, what the hell are we supposed to do with him? Call the cops? Not while we're investigating this Delphi thing, it'll draw too much attention to us. After it's over, we'll call the social people, right?"

"That's an equally terrible idea," Sam snapped back. "We can't hand him over to the government, who knows-!"

"Woah! Where's he go?" Dean suddenly said at slightly louder than normal volume, and indeed, Nico's seat was empty, the door to the diner just closing.

The brothers shot out of their seats and ran to the door—with a waitress running after them with a bill that they promptly ignored—after the kid, but ended up on an empty sidewalk on an even emptier town street.

"Woah! Where's he go!?" Dean repeated, this time in confusion rather than alarm.

"He must've really booked it… I don't see any alleys to hide in…" Sam said uncertainly, trying to think not like a ghost or a monster with supernatural means of getting away, but like a kid running from adults. Where would he hide?

"Sir? Sir! The bill?" The waitress was standing in the doorway, relived they didn't try and ditch paying as they stood there flabbergasted at the empty street.

Dean huffed. "We'll find him. They usually show up sooner or later. He can't have gotten far." He reassured a worried-looking Sam as he turned back to pay the waitress.

"Yeah…" Sam said uncertainly. "Ok…"


	2. Gone

Find him, they did not.

Nor did they ever set eyes on the Delphi Strawberry Farm

The blasted company didn't exist, and even though there were documents and countless people who got their strawberries from there, the freaking place didn't exist. The Winchester brothers had combed the forests around where it supposedly was, tailed the delivery trucks, even tried to knock a few drivers out to take their place or hide in the back of the vans, and every attempt failed. Even Castiel told them the place didn't exist, and that's when they finally got angry.

Got angry, then gave up.

They spent a whole two months searching for their target, keeping an eye out for Nico, and they were no farther in figuring it out than when they started. It didn't help that while they were there, two taxis got totaled in less-than normal circumstances with the drivers being unable to tell anyone what had happened, and yet those events got them no farther than wandering around the woods looking for the place on foot.

They'd heard from other hunters who'd tried the same thing they were doing over the years, and no one had succeeded. Confident in the "Winchester Legacy" of being the first in a lot of things—meeting an angel, returning from hell, etc.—the two had tirelessly gone after this unbeaten target. Two months later, they'd acknowledged they wouldn't be the first at this particular job.

They'd sent out the humiliating sign of defeat, as Dean put it, or the word that they couldn't crack it to all the hunters they knew, as Sam phrased it, and packed up their car and headed west for another job. It killed Dean in particular that Nico had been right, and Sam was just dying to know what they were missing. Nico had known, and hidden it. The wanted desperately for those answers, and there _was_ someone out there who knew, but it seemed Nico had disappeared just like the Delphi Strawberry Service. No one in that town or any nearby towns knew anything about a little pale Italian boy running around the streets. Sam hoped he's found somewhere safe to go, but his logic told him the boy would be dead in a couple weeks. He was so young, and living on the streets like that….

But the mystery of the Delphi Strawberry Farm and Nico di Angelo quickly faded away as job after job arose, troubles with Lucifer in hell, the angels butting in as their usual ass-hole selves, demons popping up so inconveniently, and all the normal day-to-day stuff in the life of a hunter. A year passed, and then two, and the third was quickly underway as time move too quickly as it was want to do when you risked your lives and lived in adrenaline every single day.

The whole event had become a common "one that got away" background thought for the boys as they went around the country saving people from the supernatural, until it slipped away as nothing more than a story to groan about when they were drunk and complaining about their hard-ass lives to Bobby over three bottles of whiskey.

That was, until a girl named Marcia Harper was murdered under strange circumstances.

0000000000000

"Nico." The boy in question jumped, not really expecting any one – much less the voice of his father—to disrupt him as he sat in a pensive silence atop the roof a mausoleum in a cemetery an hour outside of New Orleans at nearly three in the morning.

He glanced up and saw the familiar mist of an Iris Message floating above him, his father's cold features glaring at him. Not glaring specifically, that's just the way he looked. _Looking_ at him, but even though Nico spent a lot more time with his dad than most demigods, he still couldn't tell if he was _looking _or_ glaring. _

"My Lord," Nico said in surprise, inclining his head and sitting up straighter. His dad never contacted him personally. Usually he sent a messenger ghost or something. This was new.

"Come here immediately." He said in his deadened voice (ha! See the pun?) and the mist dissolved. Nico frowned, but willed the shadows around him to wrap him up and he was suddenly falling into a cold abyss. His feet hit the ground in an impact he was prepared for, and the shadows melted away, leaving him standing at the foot of his father's throne, looking up at the god of the dead as he toward forty feet high in his godly-ish form.

"Father?" Nico asked, inclining his head again.

Did Hades just _smile?!_ Oh gods, he was going to die, wasn't he?"

"Nico," Hades said, and Nico shifted uncomfortably at his tone. "I have a quest for you."

Nico blanched. "A-uh, I…. what?" He said brilliantly, and Hades rolled his eyes, opening his palm and letting a slivery blue cloud if mist float down and land right before the boy. The cloud shifted, and formed a ghost of a girl with blonde hair cropped just under her ears, and pale gray eyes. She smiled sadly at him.

"This is Marcia Harper, and unclaimed child of Athena." Hades explained, oftly… _gentle_ if Nico wasn't mistaken, but that… that just didn't _happen…_

Hades continued, "She was ten, and had not yet found her way to camp half-blood, though she was living on the streets and would have undoubtedly made it there within a few months. Her mother was greatly anticipating that."

Nico blanched again. Sure, since Percy made the gods make that promise for them to treat their kids better, things certainly had improved, but this was a new one, even for the rapid progress. You see, with more and more kids being claimed, the gods were getting more and more hero worship, more love (albeit slightly unwilling for some, every child deep down loves their parents) and thus were becoming more and more powerful. The more love flowing from parents to children was making both the demigods and the gods advance, and fostered a better, more family-like environment than before the war. The gods took an almost active role in their children's lives now, though not terribly good compared to mortal parents, they _do_ look out and act more in their kids' lives, sometimes even personally guiding their way to camp to be trained.

It sounded like Athena was actively trying to point her daughter to camp, but something had happened. That wasn't huge news, demigods died every day. Why was Athena bringing this up with _Hades_ of all people?

Hades seemed to sense this, or just see it written on his son's face.

"This girl's death was unusual, to say the least, and it angered Athena greatly. She has begged me to take action, and for once, I am willing to listen, even agree whole heartedly with what she says."

Ok, he'd lost it, hadn't he? He'd shadowed travel into a parallel universe or something, right?

"What is so… _important_ about her death?" Nico frowned. "I mean, people die, and I think it's sad, I just didn't think you'd care…" He didn't finish, letting it hang there, and Hades nodded in whole-hearted agreement, much to Nico's relief.

"And I don't, _normally_. I care less about how they get here, more about what to do with them once they arrive, but this is unacceptable. This girl was murdered by a mortal."

Nico blinked. He had to think about it for a moment, but it suddenly clicked. Demigods were killed every day by quests, monsters, mythical traps/creatures, each other, even the gods, but no demigod—in at least 800 years according to Nico's research in the Library of the Dead beneath Hades' palace—had been killed by a mortal. It seemed as if that was the _one_ threat in the world they'd be ok from: normal humans.

"I… that's…" Nico tried to find words, and was surprised by the _anger_ that coursed through him. Like demigods didn't have enough to worry about without having to deal with _mortals_ killing them too! Murders ended up in the fields of punishment , but it was usually demigod-on-demigod, or mortal-on-mortal, and mortal-on-demigod was just an absurd and _despicable_ thing Nico couldn't even stomach. "_Horrible._" He finally spit out, and Hades nodded solemnly. The ghost of Marcia frowned, looking down rather sadly.

"My quest for you is simple: bring him to me."

Nico's head snapped up. "Uh, my lord?" Nico asked. "Doesn't this fall under Thanantos' job description? Bringing souls to you?"

Hades looked slightly annoyed, but answered. "Thanantos brings the souls I tell him to, the souls whose time has come, and keeps them here if they attempt to escape. This man, this _murder's_ time is not for many years, but his actions have brought it upon himself to face a trial that I will conduct with Athena and Marcia's ghost against him. Thanantos is bound by ancient law not to take those before their time, and I will not bend the rules so drastically to force him to for this one man of little worth. You, however, do not follow those rules."

Wow, that made a sick kind of sense. "Bring him here alive, not just his soul, right?" Nico clarified, and Hades nodded smiling a bit at his son's acceptance of the quest (which scared the _heck_ out of Nico, seeing his dad smile, even just a little…*_shudder*)_. "How am I supposed to find him? Where should I start, like, where did Marcia die _exactly."_

"His name is David Utley, and I can give you a trace on his soul, that will lead you right to him like a homing beacon. However, the moment I do, he will be warned in his dreams that someone is coming for him, and he may try to run. However clever or strong he is will decide if he gets away from you."

Nico frowned. "How strong he is? He's a mortal, I'm sure I can take him…" He studied his father's expression and noticed something he didn't like. "… right?"

Hades sighed. "The reason I agreed with Athena so easily, is that this man has somehow managed to take the life force of Marcia's soul—or at least a part of it—and add it to himself. He has become stronger than an average mortal would be, but perhaps not as great as a demigod. I'm unsure, this is a new occurrence."

Nico absorbed that. "I'll go… if I find anything else, as to what the heck he thinks he's doing with a demigod life force, I'll report it." Hades nodded in—was that _approval?!—_down at his son, and Nico felt a flutter in his stomach as being able to prove himself to his father. He _better not_ fail at this…

"Take the trace, and my luck be with you." Hades opened his palm again, and something small and silver fell, and Nico caught it reflexively. It was a pocket watch, and it hummed to life under his fingertips.

The shadows sprang to life and wrapped around him in a cold darkness, as his father's final command echoed from the place he left at the speed of darkness.

"_Bring him to me."_

0000000000000

"Yes, we're with the FBI, we've reason to believe this murderer as been across state boarders, several in fact, and we need to look into this to see if this is our guy," Dean lied smoothly—albeit with half ass lies only blatant confidence would get anyone to believe—flashing his fake FBI badge to the cop guarding the crime scene where Marcia Harper had died.

The cop looked surprised, and slightly suspicious—what else is new?—but let them in, taking up his guard on the front porch.

Marcia Harper had died in a one-room shack-of-a-building on the outskirts of an equally run down town in southern Pennsylvania. It might have once been a hunting cabin or something, and then they built thirty more, a grocery store, and a post office and called it a town.

The reason it caught the Winchester's attention was that there was no cause of death. No strangling, no exposure, no heart failure, no terminal illnesses, no stabbing, no drowning, nothing. She was just… dead.

That, and she was ten, a runaway from Colorado, with no family or record of existing except a record from an orphanage saying she lived there for a couple months last year. Other than that… nothing.

"Definitely something up our alley," Dean noted causally. "There's not a mark on her!"

Sam looked sadly at the little girl's corpse, so cold and lying perfectly still in the middle of the barely-furnished, splintery hardwood floor. He'd take a minute to note the sadness and give a moment of silence, but Dean would've called him a wimp and ignored him.

"What do you think could've done it?" He wondered aloud, and Dean shrugged as he crouched over the girl, trying to see is anything was apparently wrong that the cops might've missed but he and his "super supernatural sleuth" training would notice.

"I got nothing, she's clean. Let's wait till they do the autopsy and we'll make a few copies for ourselves." He stood and straitened his tie in irritation at the garment and they headed for the door.

0000000000000

As usual, progress for the Winchester boys was slow at first, consisting of research and hitting the streets to ask around if anyone's seen or noticed anything off. All they got was that a man named David Utley owned the shack, claiming it for storage purposes seeing as he owned an apartment in Philadelphia—nearly nine hours away. Not a very convenient storage unit, especially since there was nothing but a broken fridge, an old couch, a table, and a couple chairs in it. Oh, and a corpse.

More suspicious still, no one had heard from Mr. Utley in three days. The brothers immediately drove to Philly, and interviewed the neighbors around Utley's apartment, and what they got was strange.

He wasn't there the day Marcia was thought to have died. That made sense if he killed her, he was nine hours away in this "storage house". But then, he was back in his apartment the next day, acting like nothing was wrong and being all nice and cordial to the neighbors like your average guy living his life. The next day too, but that night, two days after he supposedly killed Marcia, his neighbors recounted the mighty hurry he left in at around two in the morning. He made such a racket, everyone on the floor heard his panicked departure, and practically screaming something was after him. They even called the cops and searched the building, but no one was there that wasn't supposed to be, and Utley was long gone. That was three days ago now, and he hasn't been back and no one's heard a word from him. Even more unhelpful, was that Marica's autopsy came back and she was perfectly edvoid of any cause of death. Her heart and systems just stopped working, like they mysterious force that keeps all hearts beating just vanished.

Dean really ribbed Sam for saying that one.

"Finally, I was starting to think this might actually be a regular murder, but we still might be in business!" Dean said in relief as Sam knelt to pick the lock on Mr. Utley's apartment door. Sam just rolled his eyes at his brother's morbid train of thoughts.

"Wait, this place is normal," Dean huffed in frustration, taking in the very average-looking bachelor pad as Sam pushed the door open and they swiftly moved inside. Dean sighed, knowing this guy wouldn't make it easy to figure out his crazy. But it was here somewhere, they just had to look.

It only took three minutes for Sam to unearth the first sign of a fanatic.

"What is it?" Dean frowned as Sam held up a book, old and primitively bound.

"A book on Greek Mythology… not just mythology, but, like, _history." _

"Oh great, a _history _lesson, fabulous…" Dean grumbled pacing away to keep searching.

"No, I mean like, this was written in some old language, Ancient Greek I think, but translated in English in the margins. It talks about these old myths like… like it's a _diary_ or something."

"You're reading somebody's diary? That's nice of you."

"No! I mean, yes, but only if this person killed a hydra on the Feast of Fortuna, or fought a hellhound before dinner activities… at least, this person believed they did… and it's not Utley either," Sam said flipping through the pages. "This thing is legit, must be thousands of years old…"

Dean raised an eyebrow. "It doesn't look over a couple decades." He muttered, but Sam ignored him.

"No matter how old it is, it's definitely real, and some ancient person was either pretending to be a Greek Hero, or thought they were, or something odd, but it really got Utley hooked. He's been scribbling all over the margins talking about these powers and _sons _and _daughters_ of gods that are supposedly regular people with powers… and _fantasizing_ about these powers it seems."

"Aw, what little boy doesn't want super powers?" Dean cooed sarcastically, shuffling through a bookshelf.

"The question is, what thirty year old man fantasies about them to the point he starts writing equations and potions on how to _actually_ get them." Sam said, raising his eyebrows as he turned a page in the journal to reveal complicated plans that talked about killing a half-immortal to steal their powers and abilities.

"You've _got_ to be kidding me." Dean looked at Sam, coming over to glance down at the book too. "Crap. He might just be a looney, dude, killing a girl thinking she's one of these kid's of a Greek god, and trying to steal her 'powers' or whatever." He shrugged. "So far as I know, that girl didn't have powers, and Utley isn't more advanced for killing her from anything we've seen."

"I don't know, we still don't know how he killed her," Sam allowed. "Perhaps it'll tell us in here…"

0000000000000

The journal did more than tell them how Utley planned on killing the first "demigod" he could find, but also where to find him.

Apparently there was a group of people (a group meaning four or five whack-job, unemployed, bums who got together on Thursday nights to fantasize about having powers) who Utley was planning with, and all their names listed in the book that the brothers tracked down. Unfortunately, each man compared the group to grown-up geeks having fun, like a poker club or something. When Sam showed them Utley's book, they'd backed up and thrown their "friend" under the bus by calling him a looney. None of them took it that seriously, and it scared them to know one in their group had.

Still, they'd all pointed out to a place Utley once brought them for their meeting, but the dumpy old warehouse on the outskirts of town was too weird for their tastes, and they'd never gone back, choosing to hold it at one of their member's homes. Utley had seemed attached to it, and they suggested they look there for him.

Dean wanted to call the cops, tell them where Utley was because he didn't think the man was anything supernatural, just a crazy who'd killed a girl in his delusions, but Sam insisted something was wrong. The methods used to kill Marcia depicted in the book… they were almost _magical_ or something.

"You better be right about this Sammy, 'cause if it's just some freaky guy with a loneliness issue and delusions of grandeur, and there's no supernatural shit going on, I swear I'm gonna-"

"I get it," Sam said impatiently, slightly nervous, not knowing if his hunch was right with quite the certainty he was projecting to convince Dean to join him on this, but going with it anyway.

They stood outside the warehouse they'd been directed at, and could see the flickering of some sort of fire light-source form within it. They nodded, Dean shouldering his shotgun, and Sam dropping to pick the door lock. The door swung open and Dean rushed forward, Sam right on his heels, his own gun up quickly as well.

There was a long metal table with two chairs, one on each side the short way facing each other, as if two people were about to play a card game, stood in the middle of the vast room of the relatively small warehouse, two powerful lanterns simulating fire set on the table, casting an orb of orangey yellow light in the center. The door clanged shut behind them, and they realized the gentle squeak of its rusty hinges from the outside, echoed like someone scraping a nail against a chalkboard in the wide open room.

At first there was no sign of life anywhere, then Dean cocked his head in half amusement, half confusion at the table, and used his gun to point at the table. Sam looked and noticed a dark form under the metal table, shaking like a tuning fork.

"Mr. Utley!" Dean called in a strong voice. "We're here to talk to you!" What's wrong with trying to be diplomatic first?

The form just quivered and they quickly approached the table, guns still up and ready, and they heard the man beneath it whimpering rather pathetically.

"Who are you?!" A surprisingly high and obviously stressed voice shot at them. He sounded like a kid expecting to be kicked at any moment.

"Uh… FBI?" Dean shrugged. "We're not here to hurt you, we wanna talk." The form beneath the table froze, and slowly turned until they could see the shadow of his head poke out from under his arms.

"KILL ME!" He yelled, flinging himself out of the shadows and gripping the barrel of Dean's gun and pointing it at his face. "Kill me! Please! I beg of you! Before he gets here!"

The brothers were thrown off guard and they jumped back, Dean ripping his gun away from the clearly unarmed and desperate man.

"Why am I killing you?!" Dean frowned, not at all expecting this.

"The Angel! The Angel is coming, _please!_ Just kill be before he gets here…!" The man begged, he looked about ready to wet himself.

"Ok, ok, just calm down a minute," Sam tried to reason, his eyes darting to Dean for back up, but he looked just as confused as he felt. "We only came here to ask you about a girl named Marcia Harper. Do you—"

"Yes! I killed her! I'm a murderer! I deserve to die! Kill me, _please!"_ Sam just stared slack jawed at the pathetically begging man on his knees. He glanced at his brother, who just shrugged like that was good enough for him and nodded to the man with that look that said _ask your question._

Sam gathered his wits and focused on Utley. "_How_ did you kill her? We found your journal, we know you thought she was a demigod or something, you wanted her powers, but _how_ did you kill her?"

The man seemed confused by the question. "I tricked her mother into claiming her, and after I had proof of who she was, I tricked the girl into pledging her soul to me."

The Winchesters exchanged looks. "You _what?"_ Dean said skeptically.

Utley shivered. "She didn't know, she didn't know that pledging your soul to another would kill her. When a demigod is claimed, they must pledge to their patron, their godly parent, and if they pledge it to another, their parent is forced to withdraw the portion of their soul they gifted to their child, who is deemed by the ancient laws ungrateful, and thus, half their soul is removed. Their mortal half goes to the underworld, the godly half returns to their parent… unless it's captured."

"And you captured it," Sam realized, remembering complex equation he could figure out scrawled in the back of the book.

"I… I did. I cast an old spell, long forgotten, and I capture the girl's godly soul." He began to cry, shaking, not in grief or guilt, but in fear. "And now I know! I know more… I'm _clever_, I don't understand it! But I know, I know he's coming, the Angel is coming and he will make me pay…" He sobbed again in despair. "I've been trying to hide, moving everywhere, but he's always right behind me. I've only been here a day, I've tried every spell I know to hide myself… but… but I know he's coming."

"The Angel?" Sam said slowly. He knew a lot of angels, angels that wouldn't think twice about killing him, but they never spent so much energy on one person before. He didn't even believe half of what the man was saying about _godly_ souls and whatnot, that was a bit farfetched, even for him, but the guy seemed honestly scared about this Angel or whatever.

"Listen, man, we've _met_ angels, and what makes you think they'd be interested in your pathetic hide?" Dean said, finally lowering his gun as he realized the guy was in no shape to fight back. Sam followed suit.

"H-he's not an angel of heaven, he's and angel of _death,"_ Utley sobbed, and Dean's frowned deepened.

"Those two angels can be the same thing, trust me." Really, if anyone would knew how big a dick angels could be, it would be Dean, so Sam didn't doubt his words for a second.

"Forget it!" The man on his knees shouted out. "You don't even believe in the Greek gods, you wouldn't understand!" He gripped the floor to keep himself from falling over.

"No, we don't." Sam agreed. "But if anything, we're practical, and practically speaking, we need some hard proof someone's following you before we even _consider—"_

_CRASH!_


	3. Hello Again

_*Previously*_

"_Forget it!" The man on his knees shouted out. "You don't even believe in the Greek gods, you wouldn't understand!" He gripped the floor to keep himself from falling over. _

"_No, we don't." Sam agreed. "But if anything, we're practical, and practically speaking, we need some hard proof someone's following you before we even consider—"_

_CRASH!_

Something collided _hard_ with the metal wall of the warehouse behind them, on the wall of the door. It sounded like a rock, only the size of a car perhaps, and it made the entire structure shake. Sam and Dean instantly had the guns back up, pointing at the door at the disturbance.

_CRASH!_

What sounded like a giant rock hitting the metal wall sounded again, only this time, a dent the size of a semi-truck appeared in the middle of it. The brothers shared an unnerved look before looking back at the wall.

"He's here…" Utley moaned. "The Angel…"

_CRASH!_

This time, a rock the size of three semi-trucks broke through the wall like it'd been tossed by a giant. The rock was obsidian black, glossy and darker than the deepest midnight, and as soon as it broke through the metal wall, instead of following its momentum and going straight through the warehouse and possibly the one behind it too, it dissolved into a massive cloud of black sand, that swirled and then fell to the ground as gravity took hold.

Standing in the gigantic, freshly-made hole was a figure, way too small to throw that gigantic stone, standing on the edge of the metal that was bent inward as the wall caved in. It was worse than that though, for not only was the figure the size of a regular man, but he was only a _child_. A scrawny, weak child from the looks of it too.

The figure, still cloaked in shadows making it hard to get any particular details, leapt from the wreckage and strode swiftly and confidently up to the table, like he hadn't just entered the building via massive stone. He was wearing some sort of jacket, his hand shoved into his pockets casually.

"What kind of spells are on this place? Way to make it freaking _impossible_ to get in…" They heard a soft voice complain from the shadows that swirled around the figure.

"Who are you?" Dean demanded, brandishing his gun and Sam held his ground as well, both hiding their uneasiness about what was happening. Utley again looked ready to wet himself, if he hadn't already. The figure, upon hearing Dean's voice, came to a screeching halt, and for the first time, seemed to acknowledge the other people in the building besides his target.

"Uh…" Came a voice, clearer now and definitely belonging to a child, but also vaguely familiar though Sam couldn't place it.

The figure took a few more steps forward, coming into the glow from the lanterns on the table, and the shadows seemed to melt off him like cloth falling away, revealing the kid fully.

Sam almost dropped his gun in surprise.

"_Nico?!"_ He gasped, and Dean seemed to be having an aneurism.

Nico just blinked, eternally shocked to find the two men from the worst night of his life standing guard over the man he'd spent the week hunting down to drag back to his father.

"Uh…" He said cleverly. "You two…?" He said uncertainly. "Why are you guarding a murderer?" Well, it was the first thing that popped into his mind, if not that creative. The brothers looked at each other, then down at the man on the floor behind them.

"Oh, we're not protecting that bastard," Dean assured him with his eyes wide, pointing to Utley as if accusing him of stealing the cookie from the cookie jar.

Nico seemed cheered by that. "Oh. Good. Less complicated."

"Less complicated in what?" Sam asked, still uncertainly.

Nico's eyes flashed with a black fire scarier than the demons the brothers had faced many times before. "He has committed an unspeakable crime. He is to be trialed before my father for his fate."

Sam felt his jaw drop. Nico was still a kid, yet he was talking like, like…

"How old are you? Ten?!" Sam accused, still shocked at the boy's words.

"Yeah, and I thought your family was dead!" Dean said, none too gently in that blunt way of his.

Nico straitened as if he'd been electrocuted. "I resent that." He sniffed. "I'm _twelve_ if you must know. My father _is_ dead, technically speaking, but he has still entrusted this to me, I'm not going to fail him just because you're sympathetic to a murderer."

Sam backtracked. "I'm not sympathetic to him; we were here to question him about murder of a girl-"

"Marcia Harper?" Nico said sharply, and they all fell silent.

"Yeah…" Sam said. Nico looked outraged, and downright frightening. But he was just a kid, right? A kid who'd thrown a massive rock through a wall…

"Please!" Utley finally spoke, hands over his head at the sight of Nico so angry. "Have mercy!"

Nico laughed, and Sam had a flashback of Lucifer in his head as a comparison to the heart-chilling laugh from the boy.

"Show _you_ mercy?! I've figured it out in my travels hunting you down: you know that girl you killed? You had to trick her mother into claiming her before she reached the sanctuary of camp, didn't you? You _tricked_ the goddess of wisdom, and you expect me to feel _sorry_ for you?" He laughed humorlessly again.

Wait…

"Goddess of wisdom?" Sam asked, suddenly very afraid. _That_ didn't happen every day, not even in his line of work.

"Woah, you're not suggesting that girl was actually a- a demigod or whatever you call it? Half mortal, half god?" Dean tacked on, also sounding a bit panicked.

Nico looked like he just remembered the brothers were there, and guilty glanced away like he'd said something he shouldn't've. At Dean's words though, he looked interested.

"You know about that…? What, exactly, _do_ you know?" He hedged, not looking at all scarily to the brothers as he did to Utley, but like the curious little kid he was. Sam explained everything from the book, about the gods and how they had half-mortal children and Utley was trying to steal their powers.

Nico stared at them for a long time with an unfathomable, until they were shifting uncomfortably.

"Marcia Harper was a daughter of Athena." He finally broke the silence, and the brothers gaped.

"Bull shit." Dean dead-panned.

"Say that to the gods," Nico rolled his eyes, and thunder cracked across the sky, thought they could have sworn it was a clear night. "I don't know exactly what you two are into, what you think you "job" is, but it can't be bad, I suppose, if you help people." He paused, thinking it over. "The things I tell you, you can safely forget, because unless you see me again, you'll never run into another Greek or Roman demigod again."

Sam blanched.

"You're..uh…"

"Son of Hades." Nico nodded.

Sam wished he could remember what he thought of that declaration, but his mind simply went blank, simply refusing to accept what he was hearing. He came around somewhere in the midst of Nico explaining that the Greek gods were very much real, though he didn't know about a "God" with a capital "G", but he figured anything was possible if just on a larger scope, above all the Greek gods he'd met – he'd _met_, and _talked to—_and how the night they found him he was running from a camp – aka the Delphi Strawberry Service—for demigods when his sister died on a quest for the gods, which apparently was a common enough thing for demigods.

Dean seemed to come to his senses a bit and explained a little more about what he and his brother did, and Sam found it eternally fascinating that _Dean_ was the one to keep his wits through this.

"And… now you work for your father… as what, a bounty hunter?" Dean asked the kid. Technically speaking, this kid was devil spawn, something they were both trained to kill on sight, but he was decent enough.

Nico's eyes flashed again, and Utley whimpered as he felt a hateful glare on him.

"No mortal has killed a demigod in over 800 years at _least,_ if not longer. The lives of demigods are painful, excruciatingly difficult, and often short. I've only ever met six who lived over twenty in the Greek world. It's a bit more common on the Roman side to have kids, but that's if they manage to settle into New Rome, a protected city, after and if they survive their adolescence with monsters coming at the left and right, quests, missions, and parents who _love_ to use their children as pawns in the "greater picture" every other day." Nico ranted, so acidicly, the men actually leaned away.

"And _this_ scum of the earth," He continued, shooting Utley glare that had _if looks could kill_ running through Sam's mind. "decided to make it even harder, by classifying _mortals_ as potential threats now too!"

"Well…" Dean said hesitantly. "I think I can relate to the 'being used as a pawn by god' bit." He said, and Nico's eyes softened a bit.

"Yes, I'm sure you could. You have 'vessel', written all over you." He sniffed, tilting his head to inspect Dean, and the man shifted uncomfortably at the scrutiny.

"How did you-?"

"Know?" Nico supplied. "I didn't really… whatever pantheon you two belong to is unfamiliar to me, though I can assume it'd probably be classified as something of Catholicism." He mused. "But the concept of vessels was started by the Egyptian gods and their pantheon long before that- I _think_. I don't know much of Catholicism, but I've dealt with the Egyptian pantheon and their magicians enough to know a vessel when I see one, and I see two before me now." He nodded to the brothers.

Sam blanched. "So… you're telling us the Greek, Roman, _and_ Egyptian gods exist? All in the same world?" He accused.

Nico shrugged. "Well, the Greek and Roman gods are basically the same entities—like mortals with extreme multi-personality-disorder, and the Egyptian gods are on an entirely different level with different followers and history with their sources of power coming from different worshippers… it's much too complicated to explain right now, but yes, there are many different plains and dimensions and worlds to support many different gods. Gods get their power from supporters, so as long as they have worshippers and, let's say, _children_ to pray to them, they'll be immortal."

The brothers shared a look.

"And you trust us with all this?" Dean frowned. Trust wasn't something they dealt with too often, especially when this kid was spouting out information even Castiel didn't know.

Nico raised an eyebrow. "Who, besides your angel friend, would you tell about this? Other 'hunters' then? You're on the same boat I am, so to speak. Demigods, Egyptian Magicians, and Hunters, in my opinion, are all fighting the good fight against very different monsters and Apocalypses in their own pantheons. I didn't know about Lucifer rising, and you didn't know about a giant Egyptian snake-god-thing trying to eat the sun or the earth goddess Gaea trying to unleash the gates of Hades and destroy everything one earth, did you?"

The brothers shook their heads in shock.

"Didn't think so." Nico said smugly. "You keep fighting your Apocalypses, we'll keep fighting ours, and the world will keep spinning, sound good? Alerting the media isn't necessary, it'd only make both our jobs harder, right?"

They nodded, dumbstruck.

"Excellent! Now, if you'll excuse me, I have to watch a murder stand trial before Hades and Athena and then get tossed into the fields of Punishment. Dad might even let me help pick out the torture!" He said brightly, slipping past them and grabbing Utely by the scruff of the neck, and the man whimpered and clutched the ground like he could anchor himself there.

He shot them one last grin. "Nice to see you two again, by the way."

Before they could respond, the shadows sprang to life around him, and despite the glow of the lanterns, shot forward and engulfed the two, cutting off Utely's startled shriek. Just like that, the shadows melted back into place, but they were gone without a trace.

The brothers stared for a long time at the spot on the ground where the two had once stood, the silence deafening.

Finally, Dean stood up straighter and turned on his heel, heading back to the door.

"Where're you going?" Sam asked, turning to watch him go.

He replied curtly without turning around or breaking stride:

"Bobby's. I need a drink."


	4. Gone Again

After a full night of drinking and complaining about their lives at Bobby's without giving the older hunter much explanation as to why they wished to get so drunk so suddenly, they woke up the next morning and, ignoring their raging headaches, sent out the signal to their fellow hunters that they figured out the case of the Delphi Strawberry Service but strongly suggested no one go anywhere near it and just let it be.

When asked what was there, they replied "not demon business" and left it at that.

They didn't even want to talk to Cas, for fear of what seeing him would do to their mental state after learning all they did last night. There was still the possibility – the extremely _high_ possibility, now that they sat and thought through it some more—that Castiel knew exactly what was at the Delphi Strawberry Farm and with these other gods, but didn't say anything to keep the Winchesters from getting involved. Nico had mentioned most pantheons had an unspoken agreement to leave each other be, and if this fell into that category, Cas might have chosen to let the _unspoken_ bit go a bit farther than that. And it was sound logic, seeing as that if they hadn't run into Nico, they never would have known.

"Yeah, that's something he would do," Dean grunted, collapsing back into the bed of their motel room. "Leave us out of the loop just to keep us from meddling." He grunted.

"What would we even meddle _in?_ You saw that sword the kid was carrying, I don't think shotguns of rock salt and silver daggers would do much against the kinds of monsters he mentioned." Sam added.

"It'd be like trying to train yourself all over again, from scratch." Dean agreed.

"Not to mention di Angelo his half divine and has powers beyond your mortal capabilities to make that training possible." A gruff voice said, and Sam nearly leapt out of the seat he'd just taken up, but all Dean did was tilt his head to the side and nod in acknowledgement at Castiel's sudden appearance.

"That still scares me." Sam muttered, rubbing the bridge of his nose in annoyance.

"Why didn't you just flat out tell us about the Greeks and forget all this secrecy crap!" Dean snapped half-heartedly, and the Angel standing above him just tilted his head to the side in polite confusion.

"You didn't need to know." He said simply, and Dean huffed while Sam rolled his eyes.

"Yeah, that's always the answer." Dean grumbled petulantly.

Cas frowned a bit, but seemed the brush it off. "I'm here because I was informed you'd crossed paths with a Greek, and we wanted to make sure nothing of incident happened."

"We didn't attack him if that's what you mean." Sam said.

"We're low, but we're not low enough to attack a twelve year old for no reason." Dean sighed, sitting up and rubbing his eyes in frustration.

Castiel's frown deepened. "I was under the impression the demigod you met was nearing eighty, but I assume there is more to it than that." He dismissed it while the brothers exchanged alarmed looks. "Age can be a subjective thing to Greek demigods: it has been known to be altered continuously for many different reasons as rewards and punishments."

"I know I'm used to weird, but this is just a bit _too_ weird." Sam groaned. "I don't like thinking there are half a dozen different sets of monsters we can't fight on top of the demons we _already_ deal with. Not to mention other gods and… hell, I don't even _know_ anymore…" He sighed.

"Then I suggest forgetting about it." Castiel nodded with that business-like determination of his. "I cannot deal with, much less discuss at length, those of a different pantheon: it goes against the code of respect set up long ago."

"What? Pretending each other doesn't exist?" Dean snorted.

"Exactly." Cas nodded in agreement, obviously missing the sarcasm.

"No, I get it," Sam allowed, thinking it over again. "Mixing up different religions would get messy, and if each has enough power to keep out of each other's way and live side-by-side… why shouldn't they? So long as the world doesn't end from one of their apocalypses without keying into the others…"

"Which doesn't often happen until the Apocalypse is averted." Castiel admitted, and Sam face-palmed.

"Now that's just stupid." He muttered under his breath, but of course, the Angel heard it.

"But it is how it has been. No pantheon would ever accept help form another, even if they could. Different power sources for both sides of every Apocalypse mean even the sides trying to _avert_ the end of the couldn't join forces, just as those trying to _cause_ it couldn't either." Castiel explained.

"Nico said something of the same sort last night too…" Dean recalled.

"It is the ancient laws." Castiel side with the same reverent tone he used when referring to the God he was always trying to find. "Every pantheon follows them, whether they know the source or not. The Angels do not, but I doubt the Greeks or the Egyptians do either."

"And these laws say what exactly?" Sam asked curiously.

"Many things, too long to explain right now." Castiel dismissed. "It is likened though, to the reason an Angel cannot take a vessel without that host's permission, and why a Greek god cannot engage in battle with a demigod unless the demigod strikes first: they are old rules that are, for all intensive purposes, unbreakable and followed by all, though we've long forgotten why."

"And '_not interfering'_ with other pantheons is included somewhere in that?" Dean asked with a raised eyebrow.

Castiel nodded. "Yes. Less formally, but yes."

"So…" Sam said, sharing a look with Dean, who shrugged in answer. "We can forget about the Greek gods and pretend last night never happened?" He asked.

"I see no reason why not." Cas nodded again. "di Angelo was correct in saying you will never cross paths with another Greek encounter unless you meet him again. The Ancient Laws are meticulous in keeping everything separate—but your paths have crossed with the Son of Hades twice now, and I see that there might be a slight gap in the fabric that separates the two pantheons that your meetings have not been dissuaded."

"Dissuaded as in…" Dean fished.

"Dissuaded in that the night you met him, you three simply didn't cross paths in the night and never met face-to-face. Something about you two and him are compatible, so that the ancient forces at work didn't see reason to stop you from meeting."

"Good to know." Sam shrugged. "IN the mean time, can we go back to pretending we're on our own against heaven and hell? Everything made so much more sense back then."

"Hell yes." Dean agreed with a sharp nod.

Castiel looked rather confused at that exchange and their reasoning, but seemed to nod in accepting it.

"Very well. Just so long as Hades is not going to come after our pantheon for harming his son, we can go back to 'pretending'." He said uncertainly.

"Nope!" Dean sighed, popping the 'p' and leaning back down on the bed. "We didn't accidently start a war; at least, we don't _think_ we did. We usually save that kinda stuff for the weekends, ya know?" He said with a smirk.

Castiel again, missed the teasing tone and looked eternally confused again, but nodded again in acceptance. Sam chuckled under his breath while Dean rolled his eyes.

"We _didn't_ start a war, did w-?" Dean stopped his own statement with a side as he turned his head again and was met with only empty air. "Well, _bye_ then!" He scoffed, looking back at the ceiling. "He needs to work on his exits." He muttered.

"And his entrances." Sam added with a shake of his head.

Dean chuckled, but then fell into a thoughtful silence.

After a beat:

"…Wake up tomorrow and pretend it didn't happen?"

"…Hell yeah."

**The End!**

**For now. **

**I've got nowhere to go with this, but I'll leave it as an 'in-progress' fic because I **_**do**_** want to go on… **

**Leave a comment with how you want it to go next and I'll work on it. If no one does… well then, this is how it's gonna end!**

**Thanks!**

**Weezila.**


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